Tropical Storm Gabrielle: The 'perfect' tropical storm?

Believe it or not, the fall of 2002 saw northeast Florida threatened by two tropical storms passing along or very near our coast. Remember Tropical Storms Edouard and Kyle? No? Well, don't feel too bad. Those storms passed by with barely a huff much less a puff across our area. Compared to the 155+ mph winds seen in hurricanes like Andrew and Floyd, we can probably be forgiven if we don't take a mere tropical storm with winds of "only" 39-to-73 mph very seriously. After all, a thunderstorm isn't even considered severe until its winds reach about 60 mph.

Once in a while, though, conditions combine to produce a tropical storm capable of causing significant problems without even coming close to the wind speeds produced by their stronger brothers and sisters. Northeast Florida had a close encounter with just such an event in September 2001, with the passage of Tropical Storm Gabrielle which caused an estimated $230 million in damage.

Spawned from a non-tropical low pressure system in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Gabrielle made landfall on the west coast near Venice on September 14, with highest sustained winds up to around 70 mph. By the time it emerged into the Atlantic near Titusville on the morning of September 15, it had weakened to barely tropical storm strength with highest sustained winds of 40 mph.

What made Gabrielle special was its track and interaction with a stalled frontal system across the southeast U.S. as well as high pressure farther to the north. That combination produced almost a "perfect" scenario for northeast Florida to experience the absolute maximum that Gabrielle had to offer in terms of wind and rain.

Between the high pressure to the north and the circulation around Gabrielle, strong onshore winds developed across the North Florida coast. In fact, the strongest winds measured on land were as high in the St. Augustine area as they were on the west coast where the center made landfall. Those winds kept tides bottled up in coastal waterways and rivers already swollen from several days of heavy rainfall.

The result of the one-two punch of strong onshore winds and the prolonged rainfall was significant flooding and impressive wind damage from a storm that by all rights should have been almost dead after the trek across the landmass of the Florida Peninsula. Instead, winds in northeast Florida were sustained at almost 60 mph- with gusts to hurricane force- with rainfall totals of close to 10 inches by the time the storm finally moved out.

The storm eventually strengthened to hurricane strength near Bermuda, but left behind a Florida coastline shocked to find that a mere tropical storm- which didn't even make landfall here- could create such a mess. Gabrielle also left us with the painful lesson that under the right circumstances, almost any tropical system is capable of creating problems- even if it is only a "lowly" tropical storm.